Featured Courses

In their more dispassionate and rational moments, people remind themselves that they should not get too worked up by what happens in a sporting event. After all, they note, "it's just a game." However, as any serious observer of American and world history can tell us, many significant sporting events of the past century have been far more than "just" games. These events and the people involved in them have figured prominently in many of the most important political issues of the past century. This course looks at these events and traces the significant developments in American and global politics of the 20th century — from Hitler in the 1930s to Mandela in the 1990s — through the lens of sports and the athletes who play them.

The biophysical consequences of climate change on sea levels, extreme weather, ocean acidification, and shifts in temperature and precipitation have broad implications for the human experience and sustaining biodiversity on earth. Extreme drought conditions have threatened agricultural production in California and Australia, for example, while excessive rainfall and floods have threatened food security and lives in southern Asia. Climate scientists predict that by 2100, the global temperature is expected to warm at least as twice as much as it has during the past 100 years. "Climate Change and Politics" will help students from diverse disciplines understand how climate change poses challenges to policy-making, and what is (and is not) being done about it.

Spend your fall quarter studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), one of the most prestigious institutions in the world and an ideal setting to focus on the politics and international relations of Britain and Western Europe.